Creating Unified Schools in Kenya

With the support of Stavros Niarchos Foundation, Special Olympics Unified Sports will expand to 100 schools in 20 counties in Kenya over the next 3 years

The Kenyan government estimates that over 3 million people of its population have a disability. Of these, thousands are school age children with intellectual disabilities, where challenging economic circumstances may result in their social, developmental, education and health care needs being overlooked.

Special Olympics Kenya seeks to expand its Unified Sports program to 100 schools in 20 counties over the next 3 years. In this expansion, the Program aims to recruit and retain Unified athletes with and without intellectual disabilities by:

• training coaches in Unified Sports,
• expanding the number of Unified Sports offered,
• and increasing the number of Unified Schools

In March 2019, Special Olympics Kenya conducted Unified sports competitions in football and netball for 40 schools country-wide.

They held one or more Interschool Youth Leadership Forums within 10 schools in Kajiado and Kisumu counties, including youth with and without intellectual disabilities, from the ages of 12 to 16 years old. The topic of these forums were “Intellectual Disabilities and Demystifying the Myths”.

Special Olympics Kenya also monitored the planning of local schools games. Of the 90 teachers representing 10 counties trained last month as Unified Sports Coaches, 60 teachers demonstrated advanced event management expertise and were utilized in the planning of school games to be held in their respective regions and the Ministry of Education national athletics games held in Kakamega County from 10 – 12 April, 2019.

With a steady increase in coordinated sports trainings and competitions, Special Olympics Kenya has been able to recruit over 2,000 Unified athletes and partners during the month of March. Additionally, SO Kenya engaged each of the 40 participating schools for the project in all three components of the Unified Champion Schools model (Inclusive Youth Leadership, Whole School Engagement and Unified Sports).

This month, the Ministry of Education in Kenya began its Special Needs Education Institutions Sports League which interfered with some project programming in schools. Therefore, some of the youth engagement activities originally scheduled for March will now take place in May, before the close of Year 1 of the project.

Stavros Niarchos Foundation

The Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF) is one of the world’s leading private, international philanthropic organizations, making grants in the areas of arts and culture, education, health and sports, and social welfare. Since 1996, the Foundation has committed more than $2.5 billion, through more than 4,000 grants to nonprofit organizations in 124 nations around the world. The SNF funds organizations and projects, worldwide, that aim to achieve a broad, lasting and positive impact, for society at large, and exhibit strong leadership and sound management. The Foundation also supports projects that facilitate the formation of public-private partnerships as an effective means for serving public welfare. Learn more at www.SNF.org